The effects of shopping cart design and prior behavioral history on children's standing in cart seats

Twenty-one males 17–22 months old took part in an experiment of the effects of shopping cart design on standing in the seat section of the cart and speed of standing. Two different cart designs were examined. It was predicted that standing would be more likely in the over-the-counter vs deep basket type of cart since the former is less confining because of a larger seating area and larger leg holes. In fact, standing was slightly more likely to occur in the deep basket cart. The strongest predictors of standing, however, were subjects' prior incidents of standing in the cart seat and climbing out of the cart seat in grocery store settings. Thus, inter-individual differences in learning history may determine a child's risk of injury around shopping carts more than features of the cart's design.